3. Dexter Holland

Ok, so here’s the guy who breaks all the stereotypes. Dexter is the lead singer and guitarist of one of the most popular punk/rock bands ever, The Offspring. This notorious musician apparently does much more than just writing pop-punk sing-along hits and drinking beer.

This extraordinary person has a master’s degree in molecular biology. Yes, you read it correctly – molecular biology. What is more, as of 2013, Holland is a doctoral student at the Laboratory of Viral Oncology and Proteomics Research, Keck School of Medicine.

In March 2013, Holland and co-authors published a paper in PLoS One regarding microRNA in HIV genomes titled “Identification of Human MicroRNA-Like Sequences Embedded within the Protein-Encoding Genes of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus”. Pretty cool, ha?

Talking about beginning of his career in The Offspring, Dexter revealed, “Well, we grew up and were very influenced and inspired by punk bands that we were listening to like The Sex Pistols or The Ramones or The Dead Kennedys, for example. But when we started writing music, we didn’t want to be sort of, stuck to one particular genre or style.”

“We didn’t want to be a dark band necessarily or just a funny band. We were kind of writing whatever came to mind at the time and not taking ourselves too seriously.”